“Missouri is a world-renowned hub of bioscience innovation and with our unemployment rate dropping to just 4.2 percent, today’s announcement builds on this strong economic momentum,” Gov. Nixon said.

This is the fourth Israeli company recruited to Missouri since 2014 with the help of the Missouri Partnership and BioSTL’s Global STL initiative, which aims to build a direct link between St. Louis and other countries by recruiting international companies to establish a U.S. presence in St. Louis.

“Missouri as the ‘Heartland’ of American agriculture is the natural U.S. home for NRGene,” said Gil Ronen, CEO of NRGene.

Missouri’s bioscience industry employs almost 50,000 people in approximately 3,500 companies. Cutting-edge bioscience innovation is taking place across Missouri in innovation communities such as Cortex and the Missouri Innovation Center.